Latest posts from Danny Brown

Enjoy the latest posts from Danny Brown, and feel free to add your own thoughts in the comments after the post.

The Problem With Making Grandiose Statements

There?s a popular method of content creation, and it’s primarily centred around making grandiose statements to make a point.

These statements, and the blog posts around them, can range from the usual war cries of being more human in business, to posts on transparency and authenticity on the web, to how an ?industry? ? for want of a better term ? like social media needs its proponents to apologize for all their wrong-doing.

While the messaging of these types of posts may mean well, they only truly mean well if they come with no baggage.

The problem is, many don?t. Instead, they?re temporary soundbites, catharsis, or premises of something the author(s) miss in the bigger picture, that purport to be or do something that rarely continues after the original piece of content has been forgotten.

Words ? or whatever shape the content takes, be it a podcast or video instead ? are easy to create. And they may even sound good while creating them, and look great when the positive comments and affirmation starts rolling in.

But the real meat is in how the creators are making these things happen continuously, or whether they?ve been ? and continue to be ? part of the malaise they reside over, and their own previous behaviour and actions lives up to these grandiose statements.

Hindsight is easy; current thinking based on hindsight, just as easy. Grandiose is the easiest of all, because it validates hindsight with a moment of clarity.

Except it doesn?t.

Consistent action validates and clarifies. Grandiose is merely its noisy neighbour.

It’s Time to Push Back on the Growing Fluff of Influencer Metrics

The end-result of any good marketing effort is to identify, engage and nurture the most qualified prospects, ensuring the leads generated drive the highest customer acquisition rate; or at least it should be.

There?s been a backlash towards the marketing industry, marketing professionals and even some marketing software platforms because of what many see as their inability to measure the direct result of their efforts vis-?-vis the business? bottom line.

Marketing ? and social media in particular ? is often criticized for being a soft-science.

Critics point to exercises such as branding, community building and social engagement as examples of efforts that may raise awareness of the brand name but are rarely able to link directly to the specific sales or profits generated by those activities.

The need to measure the return on investment (ROI) of social media activities ? and by extension marketing ? has become a rallying cry of business executives and pundits alike.

Others claim that many modern social engagement programs are ineffectual due to their focus on short-term strategies instead of long-term value.

Influence, or Influential Fluff?

Here critics point to the trend in acquisition of simple measures of success such as followers, ?Likes? and shares, or even the use of social influence scoring platforms to identify brand advocates.

These short-cuts fall far short in identifying real influence, and instead drive poor and inaccurate results because they avoid the real work required to drive long-term business value and bottom-line results.

Criticisms aside, the practice of influence marketing must be re-strategized if it?s going to become an effective marketing tactic for businesses and gain the favour of executives that control marketing budgets.

The advent and use of social influence platforms where scores are the key metrics is not influence marketing. These platforms are a good exercise in product and brand amplification – but?true influence marketing is about measurable customer acquisition and lead conversion.

The practice of influence marketing needs to return to driving measurable sales instead of broad brand awareness. Our book, and this blog, will help your business drive that goal.

Stay tuned – it’s about to get interesting again.

The Writing Process

It’s pretty hard to write about your writing process when there isn’t a specific writing process to write about (try saying that three times late on a Saturday night!).

While I completely understand that there needs to be some kind of flow, to be honest that’s not how my brain’s wired.

Given I’m juggling a lot of hypothetical balls (and I’m worse than Mr Magoo when it comes to juggling), the chances I get to write “properly” are few and far between.

However, since the kind ladies at Morning Rain Publishing recently?asked about my writing process as part of their series looking at how their authors work, I’ll try my best to accommodate with something that at least looks like it might be a process.

It Starts With A Scribble

Much like the way William Carson described his own writing process, my ideas usually come to me at the most inopportune time – running to catch a train, munching on a lunch-time banana, or even changing my two-year-old daughter’s diaper.

Because of this, many ideas are often lost – try writing something down with banana-covered fingers, or worse (I’ll spare you the diaper info).

Because of that, when I do get an opportunity to put down an idea, it’s wherever I can find somewhere to store or share it. This can be a text to myself, an email, a Post-It, or (on occasion) a marker on my forearm.

If I have the luxury of being near a computer, I’ll pop into Word, or my blog, and draft up the headline that sprang to mind, along with a one sentence “brief” that gives me the pointers to work on when I actually have some downtime.

I find this works really well for me, since I’m the kind of writer that writes as the thoughts come into my head, and keeps writing.

[clickToTweet tweet=”Readers are drawn in by stories that evoke an emotional connection – be that connector. #writing” quote=”Readers are drawn in by stories that evoke an emotional connection – be that connector”]

I usually don’t worry about how well it’s edited (that’s why there are far smarter people than me called editors, after all!) – instead, I want to catch the raw story and emotion at exactly the time I’m thinking about it.

On my blog, this has led to some of the most personal and confrontational posts I’ve ever written – but isn’t that what good blogging is all about anyway, rawness and emotion?

Besides, as a reader, I’m drawn in more by the story and how that evokes emotional connection in me, versus worrying about whether or not I’ve pissed off some grammar Nazi god somewhere.

The Surroundings Don’t Necessarily Matter

On top of the way I string ideas together, and how I write, I’m also pretty haphazard when it comes to where I write.

When I was speaking to my wife about this, I mentioned my writing space is essentially my head. Which doesn’t make for a very visual picture.

The image below is of the table that’s in one of our front rooms.

It’s a mish mash of family life – kids toys, baby wipes, portable DVD player, my headphones (perfect for late night YouTube watching when you don’t want to wake the family), and my trusty MacBook Air.

While it might look cluttered – okay, not might: is – ?it’s actually a very therapeutic little place for me. It reminds me of how lucky I am in having the kind of love a household needs to make it a home, while still affording me the little space I need for my own belongings.

If I’m not writing there, then I may draft some ideas during lunchtime at work, or simply text myself on the Lakeshore West GO train on any given weekday.

Because I write as an idea comes to me, versus meticulously planning, re-planning, and revising, I find even the craziness of clutterdom works in my favour. Which is alright in my books (no pun intended).

After all, the process is merely the tool that gets us to where we need to be – it’s the initial step on a new writing adventure that really matters.

And isn’t that how it should be?

A version of this post originally appeared on the Morning Rain Publishing blog, where my book The Little Book of Inspiration will be published early 2015.

The Smoke and Mirrors of the Self Publishing Game

This is a guest post by Jenn Grainger, and is taken from her awesome comment on my recent post about your best work.

This isn’t a post about sucking eggs. If you do want to do that, you can find some tips about doing so here.

Instead, this is a post for people who have a good book in them, but aren’t so sure about navigating all the smoke and mirrors that can come with self-publishing.

The launch phase lasts one week, where ranking with Amazon will succeed or fail.

There are skills you need before that final moment when you hit Publish to set your book up for success.

You can read books on self publishing. Or join communities. Or have a working knowledge of Amazon and Kindle Direct Publishing.

Do your research, focus on the questions below to teach yourself self-publishing insights (questions like “Who are the people succeeding in Amazon and why?”

Then learn the tricks.

The Game of (Amazon) Thrones

Yes tricks – it?s all smoke and mirrors. The goal is to get noticed by Amazon. They will notice your book when it is in demand. When they think your book will make them money, your book will promoted in the New and Noteworthy list. This will give your book wings.

If your book does?hit the ?Best Seller? list, take a screenshot ? because it may not last long and it won?t guarantee you a lot of money. But most authors would love to be in this position and don?t know how.

Become a student of the game. Set up your Amazon account. Go shopping ? buy [Kindle] books. Research consistently the books and categories that do well and your competition.

Then start asking the questions you need to ask. Ask yourself,

Why did people buy this book?
Was it the title, subtitle, the well written ?sales? description, the eye catching book cover or was it the category?
Were the reviews written by people who bought the book organically or did that Author have support from a community?

You need to tick yes to all of these to be in Amazon’s list, also known as the Ten for Ten (10/10) list.

How a 22 Page Book Played the Game and Became a Besteller

Time for a little case study. I looked at fresh books listed, and randomly selected a book that caught my eye. Amazon had it listed as New and Noteworthy.

That’s how it stood out to me. The book? Minimalist Living: 40 Proven Steps To Simplify Your Space, Declutter Your Life And Increase Productivity, by Kathy Stanton.

Good title, good subtitle, and a pretty picture on the book’s cover. She has five similar books, which Amazon also loves. This girl is getting a lot right here! I?ve purchased the book and am going to use it to share a few pointers here.

22 PAGES! Sorry, just wanted to make sure you got that the first time round.

1. Research

When researching for your own book, note which categories and sub-categories books are listed in. Get this step right, because as you’ll see, it?s crucial.

If you’re familiar with paid search or SEO, think Google Keywords and their High or Low competition insights. If you’re not familiar, this helps you find high impact keywords (that people are searching for) with low competition (so your search terms deliver the better results).

Then use that approach to find out how many books are ?in the small sub category.

[clickToTweet tweet=”The trick to being an Amazon Bestselling Author is exactly that – a trick” quote=”The trick to being an Amazon Bestselling Author is exactly that – a trick”]

You will notice Minimalist Living has the word “productivity” in the subtitle. If the author wanted to, she could use this to put the book in a different sub-category of ?Productivity? and increase her reach. You can do the same.

2. Placement

The author has also listed her book in?two similar categories: Crafts and Hobbies, and Home Improvement and Design, with the different subcategories there still attracting the same audience. Again, think of search terms.

Want to see how that worked for this particular book??This is the current ranking for the book on Amazon (click to enlarge):

Note the Self-Help category? That’s because the Self-Help Amazon algorithms picked up this book up as “noteworthy” – this is the game!

The author would also have listed the book in the free KDP program for a few days and maybe had several hundred downloads that Amazon will notice, and is another reason why they have picked it up.

It also won’t hurt that the author is likely to be part of a community.

It’s clear Minimalist Living is using a fantastic launch strategy, and the author knows what she is doing.

Disclaimer: I do not know this author. I?m not promoting her book and not read it yet. I?m reviewing the quality of the positioning and the launch strategy.

The Writing is the Easy Part

So what to take away from this??Well, for me, the writing is the easy part (stay with me here, authors!).

By all means knock yourself out with the gut-wrenching process of writing the book thinking that is the hard part. We all experience this for the first book ? survive that, you will then need a humdinger of an editor.

Then there are a few technical things to learn – the marketing prior to the launch, for one. It might sound easy enough, and it is – for some. For others, it will feel like it’s the hardest thing they have ever done. I can promise, you will fit somewhere in between.

But marketing is everything.

[clickToTweet tweet=”You could write a 100% crappy book – it doesn’t matter, if you know how to play the game.” quote=”You could write a 100% crappy book – it doesn’t matter, if you know how to play the game.”]

If you have a brilliant title, seductive subtitle and scintillating book cover, and support that with a sensational launch strategy (supported by a spammy Facebook group, if you really must), then you will succeed.

Guaranteed.

Yes, you will get a few savage reviews but who cares? Just use a different name. 1000?s of people are currently doing this, right now.

You?re a legend, the book you wrote is magnificent and the topic is one that changes lives ? and yet Minimalist Living will come out in front, make more money and rank higher, if you don?t play the game.

Line up your army of ducks, even if you think it sucks.

Stay on Target

Through all this, though, there is one thing you need to do, and that is keep “the Main Thing”, or your target, front and centre.

If your mission [should you accept it] is to become a best selling author, this is the target to hit (or you could aim for free promotion from Amazon).

Ranking in the number one position for a category or sub-category after the book switches from the KDP Free Promotion to the paid category is the goal.

If you want the title ?Best Selling Author?, or even the top three which is also good for promotion, there is a specific trick to the timing of this:

When your book hits the top position, manually change your book in KDP Select Members Account to 99c at 1.00 PM US time.

Because Amazon takes 3-6 hours to catch up and they are still promoting your book, people are more likely to buy at $0.99 and that gives you a push to rank in the Paid Category.

Take our friend the book Minimalist Living: it only needs to be the top book in one (sub) category ? Green House Cleaning?- for Kathy Stanton to be a Best Selling Author (click image to expand).

The truth is you only need to be in this position for half an hour and take a screenshot to claim this title. Some people use reaching the number one position in the Free List to say they were a best selling author.

My book reached that (free) plateau. Do I say I?m a Best Selling Author? No. Do I care? No.

But even if you don?t care about the title and “fame”, you do want Amazon to promote you.

How I Came to Love Smoke, Mirrors, and Games

I wrote my book to learn the process of writing a book.

Did I know about the smoke and mirrors before I started? No. Am I happy to play the game? No. Will I play the game next time? You bet your sweet bippy I will!

[clickToTweet tweet=”The book you learn the most from, is the one you write yourself #amazon #bestellertricks” quote=”The book you learn the most from, is the one you write yourself”]

Here are my top tips.

Focus on the launch.
Get it right the first time. There is no second launch.
Pick your Longest Blog post or write out 25 recipes and launch it as a Kindle book, under a pseudonym. This way you can test and practice how to play the game while you?re writing your real book.
Join an active, supportive community not a spammy Facebook group.

I also reached out to the group I?m in, here are their 3 top tips:

Research your topic first, create a series [of books] and always use pro?s to edit and create your book cover. Lisa Cartwright

Write a good book. Use a professional editor. Launch to an already engaged audience. Rinse and repeat (write more books). Steve Windsor

Plan your marketing well in advance. Always be helpful to others without expecting anything in return, you?ll receive a lot of support when you launch! Find friends who have published and will support you in the process. David Bradley

?Smoke And Mirrors? by GOTYE

You?re a fraud and you know it. But it?s too good to throw it all away – anyone would do the same, right? You?ve got ?em going and you?re careful not to show it.

Sometimes you even fool yourself a bit. It?s like magic – but it?s always been a smoke and mirrors game. Anyone would do the same. Right?

So now that you?ve arrived you wonder, what is it that you?ve done to make the grade and should you keep doing the same? (Is that too easy?)

Are you only trying to please them? (Will they see then?)

You?re desperate to deliver anything that could give you a sense of reassurance when you look in the mirror.

And the song goes on?

About the author: Jenn Grainger lives in Brisbane, Australia, and published her first ebook Love Travel Plan on Amazon in 2014. She started her Curious Minds Travel blog earlier this year to record her travels while working on book number two. Her future plans include living in either Chang Mai, Thailand or Hoi An, Vietnam. Connect with Jenn on Twitter.

A Social Conversation About Social Conversations

For the last few months, I’ve been thinking about how content is panning out, both from a creation and distribution angle.

As someone whose blogged since the late 90’s, it’s been interesting to watch the medium evolve from simple text on a screen to full-on media rich experiences, not to mention seeing how social media has swallowed some of the mainstays that were previously exclusive to blogging.

Perhaps one of the things that’s changed the most is the area of conversations. It used to be they were the sole domain of the blogger – post content, discuss afterwards in the comments.

Yet since Twitter and Facebook became popular, there’s been a lot of talk on whether this means the end not only for blog comments, but blogs themselves.

Personally, I don’t buy into it. Yes, we’re in the process of evolution – but like anything, evolution is good. It helps us grow, both as content creators and consumers of that content.

What bloggers need to do is consider how they’re doing things, and adapt to more organic ways.

You Don’t Preempt a “Normal” Conversation, So Why Preempt a Social?One?

Think about the best conversations you have. It could be with friends, family, lovers, partners, colleagues – heck, it could be with the bartender at your favourite local.

The point is, it doesn’t matter where it is, because the place isn’t the instigator of great conversations – the people are. Not just people, though, but the way that conversations naturally ebb and flow as questions and answers are exchanged – that’s where the gold comes from.

This is why organic conversations in a blog post’s comments often raise the post itself higher than the original content – because the points raised in a blog’s comments section can drive some amazing back-and-forth conversations, if both blogger and commenter are open to it.

It’s something that content itself has tended to struggle with – it’s not as easy to replicate that organic feeling.

Take interviews, for example.

If a blogger wishes to interview someone for their blog, it’s usually a Word document that’s sent over to the guest with a series of questions. The guest looks at them, answers, and sends back via email. The blogger formats and then publishes – job done.

(Note: this is based on written form blogging – obviously video bloggers and podcasters can enjoy the type of spontaneity found in “normal” conversations)

The problem with this is it’s a very canned approach.

[clickToTweet tweet=”Blog interviews can read like the content version of canned laughter – forced and unattached” quote=”Blog interviews can read like the content version of canned laughter – forced and unattached”]

There’s no spontaneity, no flow, no feeling that it’s an interview. Instead, it (usually) reads more like someone sent someone else a bunch of questions beforehand, and the responses are carefully planned to put the interviewee in their best light.

This is where ReplyAll comes into play.

Not Comments, Not Live Chat – Just Great Conversations

Imagine if you could have a conversation as if you were in the same room as the other person – shouldn’t that be the goal of social conversations (interviews, Q&As, etc.)?

The developers behind ReplyAll think so, and their solution does a pretty good job of making that happen.

Much like the Postmatic solution I’ve introduced on this blog, ReplyAll does everything via email. However, unlike typical email conversations for interviews, where there are a maximum of two emails exchanged (questions document sent, answers document recieved), ReplyAll conversations can literally be endless.

The set-up is simple:

You, the content creator, comes up with a topic for discussion;
You decide what guest(s) you’d like to discuss this topic with;
You create a ReplyAll around this topic, and send out email invites to participate;
You post the first question, and hit Send;
The replies come in, you continue the questions, more replies come in, and so on.

It’s straightforward, simple, and a great way to have an evergreen discussion around a topic, while not impacting anyone’s busy schedule. Questions can be replied to at any time, and they’ll drop into the conversation.

And, much like Postmatic, because it’s done by email, you get an instant notification that there’s a new question or reply, and you choose whether or not to participate further.

Because of this approach, it makes for a more natural conversation where an intended direction of a conversation can take a sudden swing, based on the reply of one (or more) of the participants.

[clickToTweet tweet=”The best conversations ebb and flow like a river – ReplyAll provides both, and more” quote=”The best conversations ebb and flow like a river – ReplyAll provides both, and more”]

The ability to invite other guests to the conversation is an added bonus. Let’s say there’s a question no-one really has a definitive answer to – someone suggests, “You know who’d know this one? NAME – let’s ask her.” An email invite is sent, and the answer soon follows.

It’s a great way to lead a real conversation/discussion, versus a planned and sterile Q&A that can happen when answers are already provided.

What Would Be Cool to See

While ReplyAll is a pretty cool piece of tech at the moment, there are some areas that it could either improve in, or would be great to see added in future updates.

Currently, ReplyAll needs you to jump back over to your ReplyAll dashboard to participate in a conversation. So, when you get an email notifying you of a new reply, you can’t simply reply to that email. This is where Postmatic shines, and keeps the conversation flowing because you don’t have to take additional actions. Co-founder Zach Abramowitz has mentioned this will appear in a future update.

Social interactions to add to social commentary. Because of the way social channels have taken a lot of the impetus away from commenting on an actual blog post, it’d be great to have the ability to include (moderated) social chat around a ReplyAll topic as well. It’s the kind of approach that Coverit Live does well – albeit for a cost. If ReplyAll could find a way to do this, it’d add more layers to its functionality.

Alerts on drifting conversations. One of the great things about ReplyAll’s approach is it’s based on your time – you choose when to reply. Of course, this could also see conversations drift, as some guests take longer than others to reply. It’d be nice to set some form of timescale and follow-up alert, to advise a response is needed (or ask if the participant wishes to drop out).

However, apart from the native email functionality, these are mostly nice-to-haves.

What ReplyAll currently does, it does it very well. Embedding a conversation on your blog or website is as simple as dropping a piece of script into the page. Replies then update once received, and the ReplyAll discussion grows until the host ends it.

As content continues to evolve, and the conversations around content evolve with it, it’s interesting to see how developers are addressing them. Along with Postmatic, ReplyAll seem to be taking it back to where it all began – email.

Given most of the world still prefers this method of communication, that may be no bad thing at all.

Check out ReplyAll for yourself here.

For an example of how ReplyAll works, below is a chat between Zach and myself that took place over a 3-day period earlier this month. Look out for more experiments with this format here soon.